Hi all
 
This being swarm season, I got a call that my bees, strangely enough, had
swarmed.  Fancy that...;)
I found a rather small swarm on a small tree about 20 feet from the
colonies, and a very large one about 40 feet away, 20 feet up in an old
pear tree.  Since I only had one empty hive with me, I hived the small one
and then roughly split the large one between the small swarm and another
swarm that I had picked up last week.  Now when I was out at the Beeyard
this afternoon to feed them, I noticed that the hive with the small swarm
and part of the larger swarm seemed to have only the small swarm in it, or
even less.  There are only enough bees to not quite cover two frames.  My
brother Robert found the queen, so that's one good thing.  Now, the
question is this: Where did all those extra bees go that I dumped in front
of the hive?...I saw them all march in, so I know they were there at one
time.
It's a mystery to me...
 
Any comments would be appreciated
 
Ian Watson      [log in to unmask]
St. Catharines, Canada   (near Niagara Falls)
real estate agent    gardener    homebrewer    baritone
beekeeper---> 7 colonies, 3 nucs on order